The presidents of Afghanistan and Iraq told a conference on Islam and pluralism on Tuesday that their countries' new constitutions proved democracy, civil rights and women's equality were compatible with the Quran.
Presidents Hamid Karzai and Jalal Talabani were among several Muslim leaders at the gathering urging Westerners to stop linking their religion with violence just because a tiny minority misused Islam's name to justify terror.
Austria, the European Union's leading sceptic about the possible European Union membership of mostly Muslim Turkey, organised the three-day conference ahead of its EU presidency starting in January.
"In Afghanistan today, we have a progressive constitution that is based on Islam ... and guarantees the fundamental and equal rights of men and women," Karzai said.
He said this was reflected by the fact that female candidates won more than the 25 percent of seats reserved for them in the September 18 parliamentary election.
"Afghanistan is both a poor and a deeply religious country, but our poverty and our religiosity are not a hindrance to democracy or pluralism," he said.
Talabani described Iraq's new constitution as a guarantee of civil liberties based on Islam, adding: "We cannot have any laws not in keeping with the tenets of Islam and of democracy."
But the violence racking his country overshadowed all else. "Our people face a barbaric terrorism perpetrated by al Qaeda, a war of extermination against the Shias," he said.
"They also describe the Kurds as traitors and they are determined to kill everyone setting out on our democratic path."
Both the Afghan and the Iraqi constitutions were written with the help of international legal experts after US-backed military action toppled dictatorships in those countries.
WOMEN STILL SUFFER: US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried stressed Washington's view that Islam and democracy were compatible.
"There are some in Europe and some in my own country who still make that claim, and there are some purveyors of political fanaticism in the Muslim world who also claim that democracy is foreign to Islam," he said, adding he could not understand this.
"The history of the past 20 years shows that there is no cultural determinism and that democracy belongs to all cultures and peoples. From Poland to the Philippines, to Portugal, to Israel, to Iraq, Afghanistan and one day to Iran and beyond, democracy has and will take root."
While she saw no contradiction between Islam and human rights, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said many Muslim countries denied these rights to their citizens, especially women.
"Women's rights are a common problem in all Islamic countries," she told the conference opening session on Monday evening. "In the 21st century, there are still some countries that say a woman's life is worth half that of a man."
"Today many governments hide behind the shield of Islam to justify tyranny by presenting a false and distorted interpretation of Islam," she said.
Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami politely chided the organisers of the conference called "Islam in a Pluralistic World" for focusing only on how the Muslim faith had to adapt to changing times.
"Many Christians have an especially radical (negative) approach to pluralism as some Muslims do - both are mistaken," he said.
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